Alan Greenspan on financial turbulence
格林斯潘看次贷
Hire the A-Team
我们需要特种部队[1]
Aug 7th 2008 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
The former Fed chairman calls for a new way to deal with a crisis
前美联储主席另寻捷径解决危机
A LIFELONG libertarian, Alan Greenspan does not ordinarily advocate giving the government more power. But he does so in a new epilogue to the paperback edition of his memoir, parts of which were made available to The Economist. The crisis of the past year has convinced him it is the lesser evil. Better someone else be in charge of bail-outs, he argues, than the Federal Reserve, which he led for 18 years.
当了一辈子自由主义者，格林斯潘一般不会同意给政府更多的权力。但在其回忆录的平装本的一篇新的后记（Economist杂志选载过）中，他改口了。去年的次贷危机使他意识到有时候强权的政府并不是坏事。但他认为，将大家解救出来的应该是其它部门，而不是他曾领导了18年的美联储。
Mr Greenspan says a high-level panel of American financial officials should be given broad power to seize any financial institution whose failure threatens the entire economy, bail out its creditors and close it down. “We need laws that specify and limit the conditions for bail-outs” and do so transparently with taxpayers’ money, “rather than circuitously through the central bank, as was done during the blow-up of Bear Stearns,” he writes in “The Age of Turbulence”. (Penguin is to release the paperback on September 9th.)
格林斯潘表示美国金融当局的高层应被授权在必要时接管任何金融机构–如果其倒闭会影响整个经济时–解救其债主再关门大吉，而这一目标应通过完全透明地用纳税人的钱来达到。他在其新书《动荡的年代》中写道：”制定法律来明确规定救市的具体条件及其限度，””而不是像贝尔斯登案一样绕着弯靠央行来解决。”
If that means the government has to wade in, so be it. “Our country has long since abandoned the notion that we should leave crises to be resolved solely by the marketplace,” he says. “The critical need…is to formalise…the procedures improvised in the case of Bear Stearns. This should ensure that in the future, government financial assistance to lending institutions does not impact the Federal Reserve’s balance-sheet and monetary policy.”
如果这意味着政府的干预，那也得干。”我们很早以前就不信市场机制能自己从危机中走出来了，”他写道”最迫切的需求…是规范化…在贝尔斯登案中的临时方案。”但同时得保证将来政府对房贷机构进行金融援助时不会影响到联储的资产负债表和货币政策。
He says a standby panel, empowered by Congress, should determine if an institution’s failure is dangerous enough to require taxpayer support. It would then form a vehicle to take the firm into “conservatorship”, wipe out the equity, preferably impose a “haircut” on its debts before guaranteeing them, and then sell its assets. Mr Greenspan’s model is the Resolution Trust Corporation (on whose board he served), created in 1989 to take over failing thrifts, sell their assets, then close itself down. He pours cold water on a proposal by Hank Paulson, America’s treasury secretary, to give the Fed broad responsibility over market stability.
他表示一个金融机构的危机程度是否达到需要纳税人救援应由一个国会授权的随时待命的专家团进行评定。如果达到了，就建立一个管理委员会托管这一机构，清理其资产，并在为其担保前优化其债务，然后将其资产变现。格林斯潘的模型就是美国清债信托公司的模型（他是其董事会成员）。该公司建立于1989年，目的是接管经营不善的企业，变卖其资产并将其关闭。但他对于财政部长Hank Paulson关于给美联储加上维护市场稳定的责任的提议泼了冷水。
Mr Greenspan’s proposal may be politically difficult. For years Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, America’s mortgage giants, resisted the creation of a regulator that could close them down. With other large institutions-be they investment banks, hedge funds or insurance companies-there might be even more of a fuss. And the Fed is not yet ready to bow out. “Unless I hear from Congress that I should not be responding to a crisis situation, I think that it’s a long-standing role of the central bank to use its lender-of-last-resort facilities,” Ben Bernanke, Mr Greenspan’s successor at the Fed, said last month.
但格林斯潘的提议要在政治上可行是很困难的。美国房贷巨头房利美和房地美几年来一直反对这样一个可以将其关掉的监管者的出现。而对于其它机构–比如投行，对冲基金或是保险公司–恐慌恐怕更大。而联储也没准备好怎么退出。”除非我听到国会明确告诉我不用回应市场的危机，否则中央银行”最终借款人”的职责将长期执行下去。”格林斯潘的继任者，新任联储主席伯南克上个月如是说。
[1]The A-team,上世纪80年代的同名电视剧。其成员是一群战争老兵，由于受到错误的指控，无辜的他们趁机越狱并隐藏于都市之中。他们冒险犯难解决困难，只要价钱合适，谁都可以请他们去卖命，详情google之
译者：dujingqian http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=13243&extra=page%3D1
话说老美这次贷危机可是影响全球经济下滑了！